As advertised in the pitch, "The way they leave" is a murder mystery about a geoengineer. How relevant is geoengineering for the plot of the book?

Well, first of all "The way they leave" is only to some degree a murder mystery. It opens on geoengineer Aaron Curbler´s dead body and who killed him is only pieced together throughout the chapters. It isn´t your typical murder mystery, though. For one, that is because typically murder mysteries are novels and not novellas, which means this one is not as descriptive as your regular murder mystery regarding what happens on the outside. To this book, which is typical for a novella opposed to a novel, what is happening on the inside of the protagonists is more relevant than the outer plot. You could say that It is a very character-driven and not so much a plot-driven story. That eventually means that geoengineering as a topic is only as relevant for the plot of the book as it is for the character developments of the protagonists, it is only a means to an end and could have been replaced by a similiiar professional field.

Why include geoengineering in the first place then, if it is somewhat disposable for the story?

Before I even started writing this book I had been playing with the idea to write a more scientific exploration of geoengineering, because it is one of the topics that I think are not even nearly enough out there or discussed at the moment. To be honest I rarely even met people who knew half of the things that geoengineers are messing around with. I think it is important that people in general are being made aware of what geoengineering is, what it includes and what it could cause.


Why do you consider it important?

I feel like most people don´t even know what it entails, and how would they hear about it, anyway? It is like as a topic it is being muted by mainstream media, as if it is either not happening at all, or just nothing to worry about. To be really honest, I think it is outrageous that there isn´t a bigger public discussion about it, because even some better known and publicly speaking geoengineers who seemingly have a good agenda do say that what they are doing could have ugly consequences, they just cannot be sure what is going to happen. If they are aware of this and still do it, then I find it wrong that it wouldn´t be up to us, as in: all of us regular people who are living in this world right now, to take a stand and vote for or against it. Because I do not believe that any government or organisation in the world should have permission to decide for all of us, whether or not it is right to mess with things like the stratosphere, the deep sea, or even the sun.

If geoengineering is only a surface topic of the book, then what´s the story about on a deeper level?

The book is a deep dive into trauma and the thereafter. It explores regrets and trauma-related guilt, because I think for people in general looking for someone to blame is a natural reaction to traumatising events, and if they cannot find anyone but themselves then sometimes their mind has to go into self-preservation-mode and warp what they call their reality, so they cannot help but live a lie in the end. There is a quote by Soren Kierkegraad that says "most peolpe settle for a level of despair that they can tolerate and call it happiness`, which is spot on, in my opinion, and I think for the main characters in "The way they leave" it is accurate, too. All of them have had their fair share of trauma and I wanted to explore its consequences and the way that our minds go out of their way to protect us. They are trying everything to make something traumatizing that happened to us more bearable, even if through delusions, obsessions, adictions, and so on. But we have to break that pattern and directly face what has happened, otherwise how can we ever live with it?.


Is there a glimpse of hope in the book, too, a getting over trauma?

Oh, I think severe trauma isn´t something to ever get over. I think we can become aware of it and of what it did to us and we can accept it as being a part of us and a part of our life story. Funny enough, I recently started taking courses to become an art and life story coach, meaning I will be qualitfied to lead clients through narrative trauma exposure and this was one of the backgrounds that led me to write this particular book, because I do think that one of the most important things in dealing with trauma is to integrate it into our life story in a way that makes sense to us and others.


What exactly does that mean, integrating trauma in a life story?

Well, the way we see and tell our life story to ourselves and others has a major impact on our sense of self and on where our life path can and cannot lead us next. All of this sounds simple, but it was only in recent years that I learned how to integrate my own trauma and my reactions to it into my life story in a positive way and in the dedication and the thank you notes of the book I refer to the people who gave me a save enough environment to do so.

Would you call it a book about strong, self-émpowered women?

Well, I suppose you could say that, yes, but I don´t like to put it in the same category as all the millions of books that are riding on the wave of self-empowered women and feminism right now. I think that nowadays feminism is utterly misunderstood and, no offense, but many of the things that are more recently being sold to us as female self-empowerment are actually ridiculous and more a self-discrimination act of women, in my opinion. I do not believe that a self-empowered woman has to go out of her way to live her life absolutely detached from men, and I do not believe either that a woman should ever feel like she has to prove to men or anyone else that she is better at what men were meant to be better at according to the old roles.

What should a self-empowerd woman do then in your opinion?

In my opinion a self-empowered woman doesn´t have to take over everything that used to be ruled by men just to prove that she is self-empowered. A self-empowered woman doesn´t owe anyone proof for her self-empowerment. I think she should feel free to strive in formerly men controlled fields, yes, but shouldn´t feel forced to do it either She should love being a woman with all the upsides and downsides. Apart from that, if a female genuinely prefers to cook for a man and to do the cleaning, then she should still feel free to so, without having to explain it, without being looked at as a weak individual, and most importantly without being ostracized as a threat to feminism. The same goes for women who prefer for a man to hold the door open or carry the shopping bags. That should be okay even nowadays. She should never feel shame to go after what she truly wants, after how she truly wants to be treated, or who she really wants to be, no matter what that means.

Would you call yourself a self-empowerd woman?

Oh God, of course I would, but again that is not in the way an utter feminist would mean it nowadays. I do not want to live my life detached from men, and I do not feel the constant need to proof to a man that I could just as well live my life without them. As a woman, I´m self-empowered enough to admit that I love someone, I´m self-empowered enough to want to be good to them, and I´m self-empowered enough to admit that I do appreciate them.

What is the comic element in the book about?

To be honest, the scientific background and info in the book isn´t accurate, and with the comic element I wanted to be self-aware and clearly show the reader that this world is not the real world.